


for they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves

by thegreatpumpkin



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 04:01:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10756296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatpumpkin/pseuds/thegreatpumpkin
Summary: Inheritance was a curious thing. It might seem that two alpha parents should have nothing but alpha offspring, but the evidence said otherwise. Perhaps it mostly cancelled out. Whatever the case, he was not like his father in this—and no amount of work, or study, or carefully-combined concoctions of hormone-affecting plants (he’d tried) would change that stark fact.





	1. the roles we play

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LiveOakWithMoss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveOakWithMoss/gifts).



> Okay, so, yikes. Consider the tradition of upping the ante of awful for June's birthday upheld, because I seriously considered posting this under a new pseud. Unfortunately, it's not as off-brand as I'd like to pretend, so I eventually gave up on that.
> 
> I would like to officially apologize to everyone, including:
> 
>   * People who don't enjoy A/B/O
>   * People who DO enjoy A/B/O
>   * People with any kind of decency
>   * June
> 

> 
> Also, yes, Celebrimbor is born in Nargothrond-era in this fic. Trust me, as canon inconsistencies in this fic go, it won't even register as a blip on the radar.

**Alpha**

“It's not about control, Findaráto,” his father had told him, “never control. An alpha is a leader, and leadership is a responsibility, not an entitlement.”

Finrod had nodded gravely, and taken the words to heart, though he hasn't fully understood them until he was a leader himself. A lord’s purpose, or a king's, was not to command; command was a tool. The _purpose_ of a leader was to guide his people, to see them flourish and thrive. So too for an alpha.

And he'd found such joy in it: leading his own people through service and by example; supporting his omega with all the wisdom and aid of the Noldor, but letting him be the strong leader he was meant to be. It was not easy, but it was his birthright, and he did it well.

Sometimes he thought he should have been alone after Bëor, closed off that part of his life for good somehow. But it could be a burden, the same way kingship could be a burden; he wanted, and wanted not to want, when he saw an omega in need of developing. They were never his, not to keep. But for a little while, he could pretend otherwise. If he was careful, and kind, he could pretend otherwise. At least until it was time for them to move on, to bond with an alpha of their own people.

He loved being beloved, being needed, watching his people—and his omegas—thrive. He could not stop, because he was needed. He could not stop, because Bëor was gone and he could not go with him.

_Never about control,_ his father had said, but he was not entirely correct. It was about self-control, when everything else was beyond one's grasp.

* * *

**Beta**

Atarinkë, his mother had named him, presumably because Fëanáro would have been a little _too_ on the nose.

He could not have been more the image of his father: quick, clever, his ideas running far ahead of what his hands could keep up with, those hands still far quicker and more precise than his brothers’. He had a mind for the workings of things, all the tiny pieces that made up the world and how they came together, just like the elder Curufinwë. He looked the part, too, so well that friends sometimes hailed him with his father’s name before some quirk of expression gave him away.

The very _echo_ of his father, they said, and they were right—for an echo diminishes, never quite the real thing, only the seeming of it.

Inheritance was a curious thing. It might seem that two alpha parents should have nothing but alpha offspring, but the evidence said otherwise. Perhaps it mostly cancelled out. Whatever the case, he was not like his father in this—and no amount of work, or study, or carefully-combined concoctions of hormone-affecting plants (he’d tried) would change that stark fact.

It was _en mode_ to claim that such things did not matter. It was true enough that many people kept their status under wraps, and also true that the Vanyar king was a beta—Curufin’s grandfather, even, told stories of his lost friend Elwë, who had been an omega and a natural leader both.

But it was also true that the Vanyar were timid and slow to action, resistant to new ideas, unable to change with the times. And whatever he had been like in their grandfather's time, the reality of Thingol was far from impressive—Curufin could not help but see in his isolationist and undiplomatic approach a man desperately trying to compensate for something.

(Finrod had interrupted his ranting once to say, idly, that sometimes you looked out a window and only saw your own reflection; he'd avoided Curufin's wrath only by virtue of the fact that he _was_ standing at a window at the time, and might genuinely have meant the comment as a literal observation. It was hard to tell, with Finrod, and that was by design.)

There were times he thought he could live up to his father’s legacy, never mind the obstacles.

There were times he knew he couldn’t, never mind the successes.

* * *

**Omega**

No one would have believed it of Celegorm, even in Valinor.

He ran wild as a beast in Oromë’s hunt, feral and strong and cowed by no man. Before he’d started showing signs, everyone had simply taken for granted his alpha status. He would cheerfully fight anything that gave him a challenge, and the notion of him submitting for anyone was laughable.

The truth was, he was exactly what he was supposed to be, but it was the rare alpha who could _handle_ him. Omegas were, to put it crudely, never one-size-fits-all—whatever some of the bawdy ballads might have claimed. Celegorm was happy enough to let people believe whatever they liked; it seemed unlikely that there was an alpha in the world who was both willing and able to master him, so it hardly mattered.

Except...there _was_ Oromë.

Oromë had known from the first. The Ainur had an uncanny way of sensing such things, though few of them cared about the classifications of lower beings. Sometimes he looked at Celegorm with those golden eyes and Celegorm could nearly imagine what it would be like to have an alpha.

Not that Oromë was one, precisely. He could be, presumably, if he liked; the Valar had a very loose relationship with corporeal existence, which could be redefined at a whim. But if he wasn’t _exactly_ an alpha, he wasn’t exactly not-one either, at least where Celegorm’s instincts were concerned.

The first time Celegorm went into heat, he would have laid all his pride down; knelt at Oromë’s feet and begged him, prostrated himself in supplication, anything to persuade him to make Celegorm his own. Oromë didn’t let it get that far, which was maybe kindness or maybe some other emotion. 

When Celegorm came to him, he said “No,” before Celegorm had even opened his mouth. And then, “Be ready to run.”

Celegorm was always ready to run, but he was more used to being the hunter, and running was not exactly what his blood wanted. Still, when Vala became shaggy, terrifying beast, his feet knew what to do. And while it may not have been what his blood wanted, it still answered the need in him, somehow.

He ran on, was pursued, for days and nights—hard to say how many. At the end of it he was shaking, exhausted, so weak he fell down and slept right where he’d stopped running. But the burning beneath his skin was gone, the heat over, and he’d made it through without so much as a single touch—from Oromë or anyone else.


	2. the places we’ve been

**Himlad**

In Himlad, things had been better.

—this was a lie they each told themselves with enviable skill.

Curufin had had—to put it bluntly—no competition. His leadership in the political sphere was absolute and undisputed; perhaps in martial matters their people had a slight tendency to look to his brother first, but Celegorm was not and had never been a threat to his own power.

He tried, and never quite succeeded, silencing the little voice that said: _without a challenge, I grow weak and lazy._

_Without an alpha to surpass, ruling means nothing._

_Anyone may claim an empty land and call himself king._

His success against the voice came too little and too late, though it did come. He was very successful in erasing it entirely from his memories—so that when he thought upon the past and Himlad, even he believed that he had been at his best there, that it was the highest point of their fortunes.

In Himlad, things had been better.

They each would swear to the truth of it, and no one in their line took an oath lightly.

Celegorm had been—outwardly—a little less wild there. Not less _himself_ , still handsome and dangerous and irreverent; but more reliable, and more lordly among their people. No one since Aredhel had triggered the heats in him, which helped. He’d never lost the taste for doing suicidally reckless things to run them off, and there was no patient, fond predator to chase him down now that they’d crossed the sea.

The forests of the new world were very different from the old, he told himself, and they did not remind him at all of the places where he learned to hunt. The creatures were strange and new, even the ones that must have been some cousins of the ones that populated Valinor. Nothing was the least bit reminiscent of his time with Oromë.

_Nothing but the methods._

_Nothing but the way the forest felt when he had become silent and invisible inside it._

_Nothing but the smell of fresh blood and loam, and the light touch of a fallen leaf in the exact place a hand would have laid on his shoulder._

In his memory, he had been happy there, settled—as settled as he ever was, at least. He could not have been as restless as his mind sometimes hinted he was. He could not have been, because he had the fresh air and the hunt, as much battle as he liked with the Enemy still at large. He could not have been lonely, surely, with his brother close at hand—and any number of willing bedfellows when he felt _that_ sort of lonely.

Everything that could not have been true was discarded, and so he had been happy in Himlad. 

That was how he remembered it.

* * *

**Nargothrond**

There were other hungers that had gone unsatisfied in Himlad. Intimately related, in some ways, to the ones they refused to recall had existed; but harder to erase from their internal histories, given the outcome.

Curufin hadn’t meant to start it—not even as an experiment. But Celegorm, closest companion, had a way of getting beneath his skin that no one else could begin to match, and sometimes he spoke as sharply to his brother as he did to everyone else.

He’d never heard that note in his _own_ voice before, though he knew what it was, from Celegorm’s reaction to it if nothing else: the tone of an alpha. Not that his brother was ever anything like submissive. But he became—unable to leave the conversation. He would push Curufin, goad him into continuing, let himself be viciously castigated and court Curufin’s anger even more eagerly, with a vicious kind of glee.

And Curufin, who knew perfectly well how to disengage with his brother, let himself be goaded. Because he knew he could win, and by the Oath, it felt _good_ to win at something that should have been an alpha’s game. He knew he could silence Celegorm, send him storming out in fury; and even more, that Celegorm _wanted_ him to.

Anger was only passion mingled with violence, when you looked at it closely.

It had been only that, in Himlad, Celegorm pushing until Curufin tore him apart with a torrent of well-aimed words.

That was all either of them let it be, however high their blood ran afterwards.

Nargothrond was different.

Nargothrond introduced a...catalyst.

If Curufin had wanted a challenge in Himlad, Finrod was that and more. There were a number of skirmishes, but it was the first real battle in the war of words between Curufin and Nargothrond’s king that shattered the uneasy balance between the brothers and reassembled it into something more dangerous, more jagged edges and messy seams. Finrod had won, of course, or Curufin would not have been in such a blooded rage.

Celegorm had not been present, but he could infer it had been a public defeat. It wasn’t as if Curufin took private humiliations lightly, but this mood was something else entirely. Celegorm had made the mistake—or maybe not the mistake, when he considered the end result later—of saying something derisive, and Curufin’s already frayed patience had snapped. He’d come at Celegorm as blind with fury as any beast defending its territory, and just as intent on violence.

Celegorm could have deflected him easily. He wasn’t sure why he’d hesitated; he knew what explanation Curufin would have liked, but in truth he thought it might have been some lingering reluctance from younger days to take things too far and hurt his brother. Curufin could take it these days, of course, had been able to for a long time, but—old habits died hard, perhaps.

At any rate, however intent on violence Curufin might have been, that was not exactly the result. He’d shoved Celegorm against the wall, following him close and dangerous—but then something had flashed between them, and then Celegorm stood down _intentionally_. From there it was a breakneck series of bad decisions: Curufin throwing him bodily to the bed, Celegorm leaving bitemarks on his throat for anyone to see, Curufin holding him down and Celegorm egging him on instead of shoving him off. 

Celegorm staying when he ought to have slunk back to his own rooms, near though they were.

Curufin pressing lips briefly to his forehead when he thought he’d fallen asleep.

It was all bad, not least because it had all been a little too good. There was no chance it would end there.


	3. the people we’ve known

**Brothers**

“He isn’t one of your omegas,” Orodreth said, and though he probably meant to sound disapproving, it came out more petulant.

“I should say not.” Finrod smiled faintly, amused at the notion. Curufin would sooner die than yield to anyone, and if that hypothetical ‘anyone’ were Finrod, he’d probably take all of Nargothrond down with him just for good measure.

“He’s a dangerous snake. They both are. I know you pride yourself on taking on lost causes, but Ingo, they will lead you into ruin if you give them half a chance. That family is nothing but trouble.”

“That family is our family, as I recall, Artaresto.”

Orodreth huffed at him, not amused. “You know what I mean.” 

Finrod laid a hand on each of his shoulders, squeezing reassuringly. “I have our cousins well in hand.” 

The look he got in return was so _deeply_ dubious he could not help laughing, though he did not wish to make light of Orodreth’s concerns. “Truly,” he added, “If you want a worry to apply yourself to, try fretting over our trade agreements for awhile. I can’t bear to look at another tally sheet or yield report, and you’ve more of a head for it anyway.”

Orodreth likely knew he was being distracted, but he allowed it anyway. “I’ve been meaning to revisit what you promised to Nogrod. You’re too generous, you know.”

“So you tell me always. I don’t see why we should be ungenerous with our friends.”

Refuting _that_ point pulled them so far afield from the matter of their Feanorian cousins that even Orodreth, who could be remarkably narrow in his focus when he had a pebble in his shoe about something, did not remember to come back to it.

* * *

**Enemies**

Despite what he’d said to Orodreth, he troubled himself often over the matter of their cousins.

Not a matter of state, though; only a personal conundrum. If Bëor had brought out what was best in him, it seemed likely that Curufin brought out what was worst. He was aware of it, felt the too-bright too-clever shapes he twisted himself into when Curufin was at his side, but he couldn’t seem to stop it.

He could not help wanting to answer that which called out for validation in Curufin. He could blame that urge for why he always let himself be drawn back in, but it wasn’t the entire truth of it. After all, he was no more helping Curufin than he was helping himself.

_He isn’t one of your omegas._

What Orodreth should really have said, perhaps, was: _you can’t save him. You can’t help him._ Or no, neither of those, because dear Artaresto did not speak with the tongue of diplomacy—better still, he might have said: _You’re not even trying to help him. You’ve let yourself confuse lust with compassion because they’re too closely mingled in your past, but sating one doesn’t immediately confer the other._

He couldn’t read people the way Finrod did, though. He didn’t know that those things were true, or that Finrod needed to hear them. In truth very few could read people as Finrod did—perhaps only one other in Nargothrond, and _he_ wasn’t likely to discourage Finrod from any course of self-destruction.

So the problem remained, a puzzle unsolved.

Celegorm was a more distant difficulty, though a difficulty nonetheless.

The challenges he presented were of a different sort than his brother’s. Curufin had something to prove—to himself, above all, though he was gratified to have Finrod play witness. Celegorm’s careless disobedience was more performative. He knew, and Finrod knew, that Finrod could easily put him in his place; it was for Curufin’s benefit that they both maintained the polite fiction that Celegorm’s aggressive shows of disrespect meant anything.

He wasn’t drawn to Celegorm particularly, but the tension between them was as much the knowledge that he _could_ bring him to heel if he wished—that he was precisely the sort of alpha that could handle Celegorm—as mutual dislike.

In a way, despite the coolness between them, they were allies. At least in the keeping of the peace, which was to say, the keeping of a secret that Curufin would _shred_ the peace over, if he knew it.

There was a reason Celegorm taunted the king over a council table or from across a hall, but never got in his face the way he might do with some other object of his scorn, and the reason was not any sort of respect for kingship. Sometimes even now when they passed too close by accident, Finrod could taste the scent of him on the air, more alluring than it should be. They affected one another far too easily, considering the animus between them.

At those times he would deliberately say something mild but provoking to prick Curufin’s temper, because fights with Curufin almost invariably ended up in bed; Celegorm would watch him do it, tightening his fists till his ragged, short nails cut crescents into his palms, then escape to the hunt at the first opportunity—often causing significant property damage on his way out. Finrod never offered more than a cursory reprimand, because by the time that Celegorm returned, they would both have calmed and regained control of themselves.

By such insufficient measures did they avoid worse things. Curufin, for all he was sharp-sighted, did not read the full implication of their animosity, and for that at least they were grateful to one another.

~

 _Careful_ was as present in Celegorm’s nature as _patient,_ or _slow to anger_ —which was to say, hardly at all. But he had been careful with this.

He had made himself walk away time and time again, even as _fucking Ingoldo_ seduced Curvo right in front of him, as if he had the right—as if Celegorm had inconvenienced him, and he was somehow owed Celegorm’s brother as repayment. He’d made himself walk away, made himself stay out in the far woods each time until it was done, though there was no one to see to him there but himself.

He ached for Oromë, and told himself he didn’t.

He longed for Curufin to follow him, and told himself he didn’t.

It became deeply disagreeable routine, worn deep with repetition, but there was nothing for it. He could hardly stay in Nargothrond, in heat, with Ingoldo breathing down his neck. Still, he’d be on the path back the moment it ended—and if he could drag Curvo off somewhere and reassert his claim once he arrived, so much the better.

That part of the routine, at least, was worth something. Curufin was never slow to recognize a pattern, and Celegorm doubted it was any sort of accident that he suddenly became much easier to find when Celegorm was freshly back from hunting than he ever was otherwise.

Routines become invisible, in time. But unseen does not mean unfelt. Pressure seeks a vent, and if it does not find one, eventually it will create one.

It had been his own fault this time. Curufin was usually the one to get worked up in councils, but for once Celegorm had a very personal stake in the matter at hand (and not simply because of how unbearable it would make his brother if things did not go his way). They were discussing hunting rights and boundaries, a subject which Felagund was clearly unfit to weigh in on but unwilling to step out of, and Celegorm’s temper had run out.

It was not unusual that he should use his intimidating wildness, the fierce fey savagery he could call to mind just by smiling with all his teeth, to bring a little extra weight to his arguments. He knew it was a mistake to try it on Finrod, though. Not because it wouldn’t work—despite everything, he could unsettle even Finrod if he put his mind to it—but because it required an unwise level of proximity to really wield correctly. He knew it was a mistake, but he was Celegorm the _Fair_ , never Celegorm the _Wise_.

So he paced the length of the table like a great cat as he spoke, fixing predator’s eyes upon each advisor who had stood against him, unsettling each one in turn. Last of all, he stopped directly across from the king’s place, leaning in to show his teeth as he finished his monologue. “If you wish to cripple your woodsmen and give away the lion’s share of your game, then by all means, do it your way.”

Finrod held his gaze, his expression placid as always, though there was something a little too keen in his expression. There was silence between them for a beat, a challenge that was not really a challenge; then, just before things might have slid sideways and gone badly, Finrod smiled his infuriating smile. “Your advice is noted, cousin. Shall we break to reflect, that we might all come back to the issue with cooler heads?”

It wasn’t really a question so much as a dismissal. Celegorm used it to storm out, though in truth his haste was less a matter of anger now and more a matter of urgency. He had...an hour, perhaps, to get out of Finrod’s orbit before things would become much worse for the both of them. Routine had helped him time things very precisely.

He caught the briefest glimpse as he left of Curvo rising, moving over to murmur something in Ingoldo’s ear.

Pressure _will_ find a release, sooner or later.

He did not go to the woods.

* * *

**Lovers**

He would be touched, or he would flay his own skin off with wanting.

He’d locked himself in Curvo’s chambers, kicking the key out beneath the door to Huan, who whined at him reproachfully and tried to nose it back. There had been a brief standoff, but Celegorm eventually prevailed; Huan took the key delicately in his mouth with a great canine sigh and trotted off to bury it somewhere. He was contained.

It wouldn’t keep Curufin out, and it wasn’t meant to. Curufin kept another key his brother _hadn’t_ stolen, and at any rate the lock was his own creation; it could not keep him out of his own rooms even if he had nothing more than a jeweled hairpin to hand.

Celegorm had always been careful with this. He was still being careful, he told himself. Far more often he took his brother than the other way around; it wouldn’t invite comment, and it would allay the danger.

And it would relieve this desperate, ravening hunger to be touched—to be _mastered_ —in a way that running the lonely forest, trying not to think of Oromë, never came close to.

The wait was interminable—and yet, it was earlier than expected when Curufin returned. Celegorm was shaking where he lay sprawled across the impeccable coverlet, but he had not even begun to consider escape yet, which was a good sign. He gathered himself as the lock clicked, rolling to his feet in breathless anticipation.

Curufin sensed his presence before he spotted him, though he did not immediately acknowledge him, hanging the key up and stripping out of the top layer of his court garments with restrained violence before he spoke. “Was there something you needed?” he asked, in the spare, clipped way that said he was sneering. The knife-edge of his voice only intensified Celegorm’s hunger.

With an effort, he made his voice warm and careless. “Need? No. But if you would like to ask if there is something I _want_ , then we will be having the right conversation.”

“Spare me. I don’t grant wishes,” Curufin snapped, casting the discarded robes carelessly over a chair. Clearly, he had not gotten what he desired out of the king; _so much the better_ , Celegorm thought.

He had pulled his brother out of this sort of mood enough times—he could easily do it again. He put himself firmly in Curufin's path, hemming him in, so that he would have to stay put or physically push past. “And yet I will have what I want.”

Curufin’s attention sharpened. It was not the first time Celegorm had offered himself as a bulwark to batter his rage against. “I don’t have the patience for your ceaseless cries for attention tonight. Control yourself or get out.” His tone was still vicious, but it was an opening, not a dismissal.

Celegorm dived into it before the door closed. “ _Make me_.”

Curufin’s eyes blazed, and he knew he had him.

“You know perfectly well that I can.” The threat hung between them, weighty and thrilling. Celegorm let himself be stalked towards the bed.

“Can you? With all the time you spend yielding to the king, I wonder if you haven’t lost your edge.” A dangerous thing to say, an _unnecessary_ thing to say—he already had Curufin’s attention, and his anger, entirely. He couldn’t moderate himself, though, not in this state.

Curufin was upon him in an instant, tearing him out of the few clothes he was wearing. The barb missed its mark, though. “Jealousy is unbecoming,” he said, and then, “You come very eager to my hands for someone who doubts my edge.” Celegorm would have liked to argue the point, but then Curufin was raking nails down his chest and all he could do was arch up into the sting of it.

“Too easy,” murmured Curufin, sneering again. “Was that meant to be a challenge? You make too much of yourself, if it takes so little to have you quiet under my control.”

Celegorm hissed and rolled to pull him down, and they tussled for a bit, half in earnest and half-distracted by sharp kisses and the press of thin silk against bare skin. At last Curufin got a leg over him, straddling his hips and wrapping a hand around his throat, and Celegorm shivered all the way down his spine.

“I want—”

“Be silent, I know what you want.” Curufin bent down to kiss him, slowly and deep, which was its own kind of violence when he hungered so badly and was being made to _wait_. Celegorm whined and clutched at Curufin; Curufin’s fingers tightened on his throat until he stopped trying to hurry things.

He could hardly breathe by the time Curufin let him up, and not because of the choking grip. The need was beginning to overwhelm sense, and though he had survived it many times before, in the throes of it he was always sure that _this time_ would be the time it killed him if it wasn’t sated. He sat up again halfway, all grasping hands and hungry kisses as he pulled Curufin across his lap. “Ride me. I want you over me—”

Curufin mistook it for a power play, an intentional disobeying of his order for silence, and responded accordingly. “I think not. You’ll take what I give you.” He drew back again, his voice cool and sharp though his gaze was hot, and began removing his last layer of clothing. “On your stomach.”

Celegorm rolled automatically, the command going directly to the deep animal parts of his brain before the vague nagging reminder of why he should not managed to get a word in. He shifted over onto his side, muzzily searching for the right words. “But I know you like how I—”

“ _Down, Tyelkormo_.”

Thought failed him. There was only the drowning current of desire, the unbearable heat under his skin, and Curufin moving over him—Curufin who would give him exactly what he needed (wanted?). Why would he protest? Why would anyone?

He pressed his face to the coverlet, spread his knees wider as his brother settled between them, arched eagerly into his hand as long clever fingers traced their way down from his tailbone. “Settle down,” Curufin said, but he sounded pleased, and did not make him wait before pressing one—and then, with a slight snort of amusement, a second immediately after—inside him. “All that protesting, and here I find you already prepared for me.” A pause, which was almost certainly a smug smile. “What _have_ you been up to alone in my rooms?”

Celegorm growled, groping back to catch whatever part of Curufin was within reach and pull at him demandingly. He did not have the words to ask now, but Curufin laughed and obliged him anyway. He did not bother being gentle; neither of them wanted that. Instead he buried himself in one sharp thrust, holding Celegorm down when he tried to rock back into it. Celegorm found his words in time to gasp, “Yes, Curvo, there, like that, _please—_ ”

“Hush, Beast.” There was a kind of tenderness in it, even as Curufin wrapped Celegorm’s braid around his fist, pulling his head back. “I know what you need.”

That was true. Celegorm subsided, and let Curufin give it to him.

* * *

**Sons**

Afterwards, he craved tenderness, and could not have it.

In truth he always longed for it a little, but it was easy enough to turn off, knowing he would not get it from Curufin. Not so now; it was not quite as overwhelming as the desire had been, but it was still an ache nearly physical in intensity.

He went so far as to press in close, tucking his face against Curufin’s neck, wrapping an arm around him before Curufin could escape.

“ _Off_ , Tyelko, you know perfectly well I am trying to sleep.” Curufin pried him off as doggedly as a sailor scraping barnacles. Celegorm could have fought him, held on tightly enough not to be dislodged, but he did not.

He let himself be pushed away. There had been a note of fondness beneath Curufin’s sleepy exasperation, and he clung to that as he could not cling to his brother.

It would have to sustain him for some time to come, as it turned out. Two weeks later, he noticed a shift in his balance—subtle, but for one so attuned to the limits of his own body as Celegorm, too distinct to be written off as coincidence. Too soon to know anything, of course, but it planted an uncomfortable suspicion in him. 

The usually-careless Celegorm was unused to worrying over what _might_ come to pass. But this ate at him, dogged his thoughts whenever he was not carefully shepherding them away from it. He doubted he would be able to conceal his slowly growing panic for long, particularly not with the company he kept.

Would it be worse if Curufin realized first, or Finrod? Either way it would be unbearable.

“I’m going hunting. I’ll be gone for awhile.”

Curufin glanced up somewhat peevishly from the delicate filigree-work he’d been sketching. “You’ve decided to give me notice now? I suppose that’s better than just disappearing. Go on, then, there’s nothing pressing I need you for.”

It was no more than he expected, but it still left him hollow. Of course he could not say why this time was different, but he still wished his brother could sense it somehow. “It may be a long trip.”

Curufin had already returned to his work, speaking without looking up. “Hunting boar then? I want the tusks. I’ve found some new applications for the—”

Celegorm walked out before he was finished speaking. It was a year before he returned.


	4. the endings we asked for

**Consequences**

A year might have been short in the life of an elf, but it was still a long time to wait.

To wonder: _How long is a ‘long trip’?_

To fear: _If you are dead by the whims of some beast, when I need you here, so help me..._

To regret. _I wasn’t listening when you left. Did you leave some clue?_

To show none of those things outwardly. _Findaráto, if you are about to begin another speech about how grieving is healthy, I will teach you a thing or two about grief._

As it turned out, it was not nearly enough time to prepare oneself for certain eventualities.

The whispers reached him before Celegorm did, on the day he came back— _the Feanorian isn’t dead, and he isn’t alone, either._

Curufin did not credit that. Of course he had that hound at his side—he’d sooner believe Celegorm dead than believe he’d go anywhere without the damn dog. He would rather have seen the truth of it for himself in private—he hardly needed witnesses to this reunion—but on the other hand, he was not eager for half the city to know what had happened before he did. He followed the gossip and managed to meet Celegorm on the outskirts, before he had come into the city proper.

Even so, they were not unobserved. He kept his face impassive, even as he scoured his brother’s form for any sign of injury, any explanation of his long absence.

There was none. He looked...weary, less cheerfully wicked than his usual self, but otherwise unchanged. The dog at his side, the pack slung over his back, even the ragged state of his clothing were all so familiar that Curufin felt choked with emotion at the sudden flood of memory; he decided that emotion was rage, and the only way to breathe again was to let it out.

“How _dare_ you—”

The pack squirmed. A pair of grey eyes, wide and wary, peeped over Celegorm’s shoulder. Curufin’s words went all to smoke like a doused fire.

Celegorm’s eyes flicked briefly to the others around them on the path, then very deliberately back to Curufin, imparting some extra shade of meaning the words that were to follow. He did not stop walking. “As you requested, I have retrieved your son. I would have returned sooner, but it was a more difficult task than I imagined.”

“As I—” Curufin was having difficulty assembling the pieces into a sensible picture. “My _son_.” He knew, he’d known as soon as he’d seen the child, but trying to understand _how_ and _why_ and what had happened in the interim was like trying to rearrange the reflection in a puddle.

“His _mother_ ,” Celegorm said pointedly, passing him now, as Curufin had not moved, “was reluctant to give him up. I half-thought I would come home empty-handed.”

 _Empty handed._ Curufin went cold as he suddenly understood Celegorm’s meaning, turning to stride swiftly after him. “You would not have. I would not have allowed—”

“You would never have known, Curufinwë.” Celegorm’s voice was low and chilly, quiet enough that he did not bother to continue the act. “For all you think yourself insightful, you would never have known.”

There was nothing he could say to dispute it. He found his eyes drifting to the dark head at Celegorm’s shoulder, the quiet bright-eyed babe there.

“Luckily for you,” Celegorm said without looking at him, in a more normal tone, “she loved the boy. And came around to understanding that this was what was best.”

Curufin did not know what to say to that. Awkwardly, he reached out to lay a hand on Celegorm’s elbow. Celegorm glanced at him sharply. “It is. It is best,” Curufin said, the least eloquent he’d ever been; but something in the hard lines of his brother’s face softened.

“She called him Tyelperinquar,” he said after a moment. “I had a guess what name you would give him, Curufinwë son of Curufinwë.”

* * *

**Compensations**

It wasn’t right, but it was what was.

Things were not well between them for a long time. Celegorm was cold and distant in a way he had never known how to be; Curufin grew impatient with him, impatient with Tyelperinquar’s crying, impatient with the ceaseless curiosity of Finrod’s infuriating courtiers when it came to Tyelperinquar’s absent so-called mother.

But then Tyelperinquar would smile when Curufin lifted him out of his bassinet.

Or Celegorm would come to him, late, when Tyelperinquar had finally fallen asleep.

Or he would go to Finrod, late, when Tyelperinquar would not quiet unless Celegorm was holding him.

There was no regaining the fast-paced, barely-balanced dynamic of the time before, but sometimes it seemed as though the bone might set clean, at least.

Celegorm laid tucked into him on a night when they’d managed an hour uninterrupted; Curufin suppressed the urge to extricate himself for as long as he could, instead outlining the ridge of Celegorm’s spine with idle fingertips.

“You should have told me you were having heats again,” he said, though there was satisfaction in his voice instead of reproach.

Celegorm made a soft, skeptical huff. “To what end? Don’t pretend you would have handled it well.” And then, with a note of amusement in his voice, “I’d rather eat my own young than face you in one of your moods.”

“It might have helped avoid certain distinct difficulties,” Curufin said archly, and ignored the way his stomach twisted at the thought of a timeline in which Tyelperinquar had not come to be. “Besides, you do know how I like to be proven right.”

“You? Never.” Celegorm bit him, gently. “Proven right about what?”

“How unnecessary alphas are, in the great scheme.” Curufin smiled to himself in the dark, his hands roaming with more purpose now; Tyelperinquar had not made a peep from the other room, and he was beginning to consider the possibility of another round. “Even this, you did not need an alpha for. I should have liked some warning, but...I cannot say there is not part of me that is not pleased.”

For the briefest of moments, Celegorm tensed under his hands, and he wondered if he’d somehow scraped the wall of guarded emotion that even now could drive his brother defensive and distant. But then Celegorm sighed—laughed?—and all the tension went out of him. “Which part, specifically?”

That sounded like the brother he knew. “Incorrigible. Let me up and I’ll show you.”

Celegorm took his time, kissing and then biting his throat, his teeth sharp and white even in the dark. “I think you’re right,” he said at last, shifting aside to let Curufin move over him. 

“Hm?”

There was an edge to his voice, lust or something darker. “We would all be better off without alphas.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Walt Whitman, because it's June's birthday present, after all.


End file.
